City Hall South Redevelopment | ? | 20 & 24 fl | Proposed
 

The city is looking for proposals to redevelop the parking lot behind City Hall...

- source

Tech Hub proposal, it's part of City Hall expansion. I think thmoax created a thread about this but I can't find it.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EQBZnwiW...name=4096x4096
https://twitter.com/AdamCHCH

Clearer
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https://twitter.com/SamCraggsCBC

1) hideous

2) it would be great to have this land developed. And new office space is exciting for Hamilton. We really badly need more employment, especially downtown which is the best services area of the city by transit and cycling and other modes of transportation.

Entrepreneur envisions tech and medical hub behind Hamilton City Hall
‘It’s my argument that Hamilton is the next metropolitan city,’ Paven Bratch says

NEWS 10:50 AM by Teviah Moro The Hamilton Spectator

Paven Bratch standing on the historic staircase in The Pasadena. - Gary Yokoyama , The Hamilton Spectator

PAVEN1
Paven Bratch, former owner of Radius and well-known Hamilton entrepreneur. - Cathie Coward , The Hamilton Spectator
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A Hamilton-born entrepreneur is hoping to build a technology and medical innovation hub in what is now the back parking area of city hall.

The ambitious plan calls for two towers of 20 and 24 storeys with a combined 572,000 square feet of office space.

Paven Bratch's proposal also includes a 12-storey city expansion building with 120,000 square feet of office space.


The tech campus would place 1,350 parking spaces under the surface and include 200 spots for bikes and showers.

His plan also includes green space.

"I think this is a great opportunity for Hamilton," Bratch, who made his pitch to city councillors Wednesday, told The Spectator.

He and his firm, MetroPartners Inc., want to buy the southerly parking area behind the city hall building at fair market value.

The city would retain ownership of the existing 1960s-era municipal building on Main Street West.

In addition to the two office towers, Bratch's plan includes a 12-storey civic expansion building with a gym if city hall needs more space in coming years.

Details of what that arrangement would look like would have to be hashed out with the city, Bratch said.

Hamilton council to get transit task force updates...
During Wednesday's meeting, councillors Sam Merulla and Jason Farr circulated a draft motion to have staff negotiate a memorandum of understanding with MetroPartners Inc. to create the tech hub.

The MOU would include a sale and long-term lease option at fair market value of the lands behind the city hall building.

Bratch is betting the local hub can be an attractive location for large firms to establish beachheads near saturated and expensive Toronto.

He said his proposal would do this by building much-needed modern office space in Hamilton.

"I think our city has done a great job in creating a fabulous vibe. It's my argument that Hamilton is the next metropolitan city."

Bratch, 56, is the original owner of Radius, an eatery and bar on the northeast corner of James and Augusta streets, and a real estate developer.

The McMaster University commerce graduate worked for Procter and Gamble before becoming a "serial entrepreneur," mostly in marketing and technology.

Bratch estimates the revamp would draw as many as 7,000 well-paid jobs to the city and carry a ballpark cost of $250 million to build.

The proposal responds to the city's call in 2016 for developers' ideas on how to reinvent the south parking lot area, which includes elevated walkways and concrete piers. The former Canadian Football Hall of Fame building is on the eastern edge of the parcel.

In the document, the city says its "real property interests could be leveraged for broader community-building initiatives as well as present opportunities for value maximization through strategic repurposing, consolidation or disposition."

If realized, Bratch's redevelopment would be next to the YWCA to the east on MacNab Street South. The heritage Central Elementary School is due south across Hunter Street. A host of apartment buildings cluster the surrounding Durand neighbourhood.

The proposal's renderings, by Hamilton-based Lintack Architects Incorporated, also includes a three-level, 250,000-square-foot plaza that would house a grocery store.

The plan features atriums with garden walls, a top-floor auditorium with views of the city, meeting spaces, cafés, an indoor running track and skating rink.

Bratch said the "technology and medical innovation centre" would find synergy with the work McMaster Innovation Park is already doing.

If approved, construction on the parking structure and one tower would move forward in 24 to 36 months, he said. The second tower could be built in the next five or six years.

"I have engaged with pension funds, and other large institutional organizations," Bratch said about potential investors.

"There's a ton of money that's looking for a home, and they want to support projects like this, so I'm quite confident of that."

A staff report before Wednesday's general issues committee found there was 5,598,287 square feet of office space in buildings 5,000 square feet or larger in the downtown area as of the last quarter of 2019.

Of that total, 667,720 square feet was empty, which made for an 11.9 per cent vacancy rate. That was 0.8 per cent lower than 2018.

"This is the first time since 2011 that the office vacancy rate has dropped below 12 per cent and is a good indicator of improving economic conditions in the (study area)," the economic development report states.

The survey also counted 26,305 jobs, an increase of 0.7 per cent for 186 more positions since 2018, in the area bounded by Queen Street to Victoria Avenue, Hunter Street to Cannon Street, James Street North to the CN railway, and James Street South to Charlton Avenue.

[email protected]

905-526-3264 | @TeviahMoro

Pics from that Spec story. The design is probably very preliminary so I wouldn't judge the aesthetics just yet.
https://www.thespec.com/news-story/9...ton-city-hall/


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would be shocked if it happens, but love it! Great mix of uses and amenities. And fantastic use of land.

Not getting the real-world likelihood or viability of this proposal. Shades of a developer who proposed a 100-story hotel here.

Developer: "There's a ton of money that's looking for a home, and they want to support projects like this, so I'm quite confident of that."

- current inventory of downtown office space: 5,598,287 square feet

- 4th quarter, 2019: "667,720 square feet was empty, which made for an 11.9 per cent vacancy rate"

- proposal: "two towers of 20 and 24 storeys with a combined 572,000 square feet of office space"

To compare, Toronto's vacancy rate is 2.6%.

Hmm...11.9% vacancy rate in Hamilton. Let's add more office space!

To be fair, most of the office space available in Hamilton is Type C or Type B office space. From what I understand much of the new office space is being leased out, and some like the Olympia downtown are leased before they're even done. There is decent demand from my understanding for Type A office space downtown, and this would feel that demand. Plus this is pretty much a Jackson Square two, with commercial, grocery and other amenities that newer office buildings need and want, plus parking and cycling facilities.

Looks like software firms are finally starting to look at Hamilton seriously and with Toronto office space and developers being so expensive compared to Hamilton hopefully it can work.

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that rooftop amenity, sky garden and rooftop auditorium look amazing - although I question if that is just stock footage or if it'd actually look like that - if it looked like that itd be awesome - but hamilton is plagued with "legoland"itis where they almost only seem capable of building rectangular blocks, which from an architectural perspective is both boring and a bit lazy from a design perspective.

Hope you're right about the demand. This build would really make an impact on ground-zero of the core. A grocery store rivaling Nations Fresh would be welcome.

I'm a little skeptical of the demand for other commercial, although there would be an uptick hopefully. Jackson Square is a retail dinosaur in rapid decline: witness the shuttered and seemingly unrentable spaces.

the news article on this proposal is peak Hamilton at it's finest.

They start a process 4 years ago. Let it die.
A go-getter decides he doesn't just want to let the idea die, so he develops a proposal to present to council. Councils response is "I guess we should get off our flabby duffs and track down all the other proponents we met with 4 years ago and then did nothing with".

Sounds about right. This proposal should finally come before council to be voted on in the spring of 2029.

from what I saw Jackson and Naan are against. Clark, Farr and Eisenberger are for going forward. Naan is a socialist and doesn't want to sell public lands even if they are just asphalt for parking. No public use is being used on those lands. Vanderbeek is afraid her suburban parking lot will be interrupted during construction. It's all about parking and surface lots, Hamilton loves it's surface parking. This will have two levels of parking underground. The horror that they might have to use shuttle busses for a couple years is not acceptable to the suburban ideals.

They will issue another RFI or RFP for the parking lot. It's a huge waste of land, surrounded by all the high-rises in Durand. They just can't take a good proposal and all want to follow process. Take this as it is. It's brilliant

Guess how much A class office space does Hamilton have? The answer is ZERO

They should all practice what they preach - get rid of all the parking around the city hall, and all bike and take public transit to work - or is that only good enough for the plebian masses..

Today's Globe and Mail: "Google plans to more than triple its work force in Canada over the next three years to as many as 5,000 employees across Toronto, Montreal and Ontario’s Kitchener-Waterloo region.

The expansion will include three new offices, the company said Thursday, with the biggest growth in Kitchener, where it could have up to 3,000 employees working by 2022."

Article here: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/busi...onto-montreal/

If the developer can lease 572k of new-build space here, good on them. But its pension fund and private-equity lenders will want ACTUAL evidence of demand. Is there real momentum in Hamilton?

3,000 google employees in Kitchener is huge. That’s 1.2%of the entire Regions employment. That’s huge for a single company.

It would be great if Hamilton could pick up an office like this (although Google probably isn't realistic). Shopify seems to be expanding everywhere. Hopefully EcDev is going after them.

Good paying jobs too, which means that is a huge investment in the area. If we even assume a wage of $40k average that's $120m in wages injected into the Waterloo region.